Monday, February 5, 2018

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Lycoming College will host Matthew Restall, Ph.D., for a special lecture entitled, “Why Everything You Thought You Knew About the Aztecs and the Conquistadors Is Wrong,” on Feb. 19th at 7:30 p.m., in the Mary Lindsay Welch Honors Hall on the corner of Fourth and Basin Streets. The event is free and open to the public.

Restall’s expertise on indigenous history in Colonial Latin America provides a unique opportunity to bring together students and faculty across several departments on campus for an engaging and thought-provoking lecture on the topic of his new book, “When Montezuma Met Cortés.”

“It is a great privilege to bring Professor Restall to our campus. He is a leading scholar who has made important contributions critiquing popular myths about the Maya and the 2012 apocalypse,” said Jessica Munson, Ph.D., assistant professor of Latin American archaeology at Lycoming College. Munson is co-organizing the event with Christopher Pearl, Ph.D., assistant professor of history at Lycoming. The timing of this interdisciplinary event will complement students’ studies in anthropology, archaeology, history and literature.

Restall is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History and Director of Latin American Studies at Penn State University. He also holds courtesy appointments in Anthropology and in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies. The recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim Fellowships, Restall recently held fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study, and the John Carter Brown Library. Since 1995 he has published twenty books and over fifty articles and essays focusing on three areas of specialization: colonial Mesoamerica, primarily Yucatan and the Maya; Africans in Spanish America; and the Spanish Conquest. His new book, When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History, will be published in January 2018.

This event is sponsored by the departments of sociology-anthropology, history and modern language studies, in collaboration with the archaeology program and Latin American studies.

About Lycoming CollegeFounded in 1812, Lycoming College is one of the nation’s oldest and most respected liberal arts colleges. Today, our community of 1,300 active learners from 29 states and territories and 24 countries work with our renowned scholars to craft customized, market-driven majors, minors and concentrations across our 60+ academic programs. These students also compete in 17 NCAA Division III sports and study abroad in more than a dozen countries. Lycoming College has one of the highest endowment-per-student ratios among Pennsylvania colleges and is ranked by Forbes as among the very best for financial strength and operational soundness.